- Crosses
- The 22 m moat
- Period
- Ayyubid, rebuilt later
- Access
- The only entrance
- State
- Restored
There is only one way in, and it is a performance. The bridge leaves the city at ground level and rises on a line of stone arches across the twenty-two metre ditch, climbing all the way to the gatehouse door. It is steep, it is narrow, it is entirely exposed, and every conqueror who ever took Aleppo walked up it.
Militarily the logic is simple: an attacking force cannot spread out. It must come single file, uphill, in the open, with the whole face of the fortress looking down on it. There is no cover on the bridge and there was never meant to be.
How much of what you walk on is Ayyubid and how much is a later Mamluk rebuild is not settled — the sources disagree, and the question is on the list for the antiquities authority to answer.